The present invention relates to a swimming enclosure enabling a section of water to be sufficiently separated from the main body of water to permit bathing and swimming at any desired point in open water with protection being provided against jelly fish, including sea nettles, other noxious fish, and voracious aquatic animals.
In certain areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and other salt water seas, sea nettles are a problem at certain times of the year and cause the water to be practically unusable for swimming, etc. The present invention provides a portable enclosure which can be readily coiled into a compact bundle for storage and which, when placed in the water, is self-opening to provide a floating cylindrically shaped element having side and bottom walls of open mesh material of a size sufficient to repel nettles and the like, and having a lip projecting above the water surface to prevent entry of the creatures into the enclosure through wave action.
There are several devices which purport to provide a swimming enclosure in the open sea but these are either rigid, bulky devices, or otherwise require extensive mechanisms for opening and closing. Among these are those shown in the U.S. Pat. Nos. to Bamber 208,360, Serafinowicz 2,013,635 and 2,092,782, Moray 1,752,191, Limegrover 4,135,256, and Puncochar 3,571,819.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a portable swimming enclosure which one person can rapidly remove from the water, coil into a compact bundle and place in a suitable carrying bag for storage. It is a further object to provide a swimming enclosure of this type, which when thrown into the water without restraint, will automatically resume its operating shape without external means. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a light weight swimming enclosure which can be readily taken from a storage condition to an operating condition by one person in a short period of time. These and other objects and advantages will become apparent hereinafter.
The present invention comprises a portable swimming enclosure having a foldable open mesh body defining side and weighted bottom walls, a float system around the open top to provide an upstanding lip above the surface of the water and means for automatically opening the enclosure when it is placed without restraint into the water.